The Nexus 7, having been rumoured for months, comes packed with quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 1.2-megapixel front camera and a 1280 x 800 screen running Jelly Bean, Google's newest Android operating system. The tablet will have access to books, movies and music in the cloud through the Google Play store.

Rivals Apple and Amazon will surely be watching closely, with the former also rumoured to be launching a 7" iPad and the latter looking to launch a new version of their popular Kindle Fire tablet.

Google also announced the Nexus Q, a rather interestingly-shaped media streaming device that connects to your TV and can be controlled by an Android device, similar to the Apple TV.

The Nexus 7 starts at $199 U.S. and is expected to ship in mid-July, while the Nexus Q will sell for $299 U.S. and will also ship mid-July.

Google also said that one million devices running Android are being activated every day, with a total of 400 million activated Android devices, up from 100 million devices announced at last year's Google I/O conference.